Remember When
by Eliza4892
Summary: It's several years later, our interns are now attendings, and a lot has changed.


It was the year after they finished their residency that their small group was split up. Cristina was the first to go. She was good at what she did, everyone wanted her. And she was the best kind of surgeon because she had no attachments, nothing holding her back. Her and Burke had long since broken it off, unable to keep it together any longer. He couldn't operate; she didn't know how to be there for him. Love just wasn't enough in there case. Meredith was next, off to, of all places, New York, with her _husband. _Yes, her and Derek had actually managed to work things out. She packed up her stuff one day and November and left the house with Izzie and George, and neither had seen her since.

For awhile it was just Izzie, George and Alex left. Alex and Izzie went from hot to cold still and he was more or less in out of the house because of it. Izzie had wanted him there initially because she wanted to keep what remained of their little group together. Alex never lost his fascination with plastic surgery and he didn't see much business in Seattle. After yet another fight between him and Izzie, Alex left for Los Angeles, figuring that was the place to be for a plastic surgeon. He'd been back afterwards a few times, but only for a week or so, just to visit. That left George and Izzie alone in a house that reminded them of people they missed. A month and a half after Alex left, George and Izzie got their own apartments and sold the house.

They both continued to work at Seattle Grace, both attendings, but in different fields. She found her niche in neonatal; his was in the workings of the heart and all things cardiothoracic. Burke's old specialty. Their apartments were less than a mile from each other but they barely saw each other even so. They were each others connection to the days before they were forced to grow up and be professionals all the time and that connection was beginning to slowly but surely fade. This was not particularly appealing to either of them and so Izzie had the first move and asked George if he wanted to meet her at the coffee shop right by the hospital. From that, a new routine was born.

Before work in the mornings they would meet at the coffee shop, the one that Izzie still remembered Cristina had been partial to. It was almost like their new version of Joe's because, even though they still went there some nights, it wasn't the same with Meredith tossing back tequila shots and complaining about McDreamy.

"Have you heard about the sextuplets' case?" Izzie asked, stirring her coffee in order to cool it, seated in the small booth that she and George practically reserved. They had been coming there everyday, save for days off, at the exact same time, occupying the same booth. The staff knew them by name.

"No. That's six right?" He recognized the prefix but he had to check anyway, put off by the high number. She nodded, remembering she had been just as shocked as him. "How is that even possible naturally?"

"I don't think it is but she denies using any fertility drugs so I can't know for sure. She kept telling me that twins run in the family like that was similar to sextuplets or something." Her eyes glazed over for a moment. "I think the highest number we ever saw were the quints right? When Dr. Montgomery Shepherd was still here."

"Yeah I remember, because that was right before we got that hyena disguised as a dog." George didn't like to make fun of the dead but it was a dog, and not one he had ever been particularly fond of. "Oh, yesterday I had this one patient who asked me if I'd ever done open heart surgery before like I was new at this or something. You should've seen the look he gave me when I said my first time was in an elevator."

"Solo," she amended with a grin. "The entire police department like loved you that day. You got to play hero for the day."

"That was a very good day." He was quite content with himself then, basking in the memory of old glories, before he straightened and his face lit up. "You know who called me yesterday? Or maybe it was the day before…" he paused in thought, the long work days and odd hours messing with his sense of time.

"George, get to the point. Who called?" She could tell by his tone that it was someone important and she wanted to stop him before he could go off on a tangent. Plus she had a surgery in an hour so she couldn't exactly be here all day.

"Meredith." He took a sip of his coffee, knowing that waiting for an explanation was just killing her. "She said Derek is flying here for a medical conference in a week and she's coming with him to visit."

It was all she could do not to practically squeal at the prospect of seeing her old friend. That should really say something about how much she hadn't matured in the past few years. "Seriously? 'Cause George if you're messing with me I will hurt you."

A slow smile spread across his lips at her threat, recognizing the light joking tone in her voice. "Seriously."

"Meredith's coming here. To Seattle." Izzie repeated information when she was trying to organize her thoughts. It was a trait she had picked up from Meredith. "How long has it been since we've seen her? Three years?" He nodded, even though she wasn't really paying any attention to him. The wheels in her mind were churning and he could see she was formulating a plan. For what, he didn't know. "Wouldn't it be totally cool if we could get Cristina and Alex to come too? It'd be like a mini-reunion."

"I really doubt you're going to get either of them out here for something even remotely sentimental." George thought the whole idea was kind of amusing, but he could tell Izzie thought it was good and so he was a little more careful with his words.

"Oh come on, it could happen. Alex would be on the first plane here if he thought there was even the slightest possibility of getting laid. And Cristina has to have mellowed out at least some by now." She was excited, with the fervor that she usually reserved for Christmastime and the perfect batch of cookies.

"Yeah, but Izzie," his hand reached across the table for hers, making sure she was listening to him, "you know that's not going to happen. Meredith, Cristina, and Alex, they've all moved on. We've moved on. I mean, yeah, they still feel like family but it's never going to be like it was." She looked away from him, coming back down from her high. His words made sense. They had all changed; they'd all gone in different directions. "You've still got me though."

Izzie opened her mouth to speak, to tell him she knew that, but a girl bumped into the table, causing their coffee cups to shake but thankfully not dump all over them. She turned with wide eyes and an embarrassed expression.

"I'm so sorry," the girl apologized, biting her lip as she went towards a man about her age, giving him a playful shove and whispering something to him. Izzie had seen them before, she knew from memory that they were part of the batch of new interns that had just arrived at the hospital within the past few weeks. She watched the two grab a table not too far away, sitting down with their coffee, chatting away like best friends. They looked so young.

"That was really us once?" She had meant to look at George when she asked but she couldn't bring herself to look away from the pair. She wondered if this was what Burke or Addison had thought while watching them years ago. These interns were so inexperienced, still totally human. They weren't hardened by their job yet. But what struck her even more was how much of herself she could see in the bubbly girl who was now laughing at something her friend had said. It was like looking at an old photograph, wondering how that could even possibly have been her, and trying to figure out how she had gotten here.

"Yeah, it was." He chuckled, adding. "I can't believe we were really that childish." Even though it sounded like he was completely oblivious to what the scene before them signified she knew he got it. He always understood her. Eight plus years together tended to do that to people.

She shook her head. "No, we weren't childish. We just didn't know. We didn't know what was going to happen. We thought it would always be like that. That things would be so simple. No one thought we would end up on opposite ends of the country." Her eyes burned but she just blinked the tears away. "I miss that." When she looked back at him, as she finished her sentence, he squeezed her hand a little tighter, giving her a small smile if only to try to get her to smile and cheer up.

Upon closer inspection of the duo in front of her she did come to another, much more important realization. She had been merely looking at the girl before, but now, as she took them both into account, and saw their body language towards one another, she noticed the similarities between them and her relationship with the man across from her. Best friends to the point of acting like siblings. It was the one continuous relationship she'd had since she started her internship.

Maybe some things didn't have to change.


End file.
